Tag: The Public Theater

Join us February 13th for an extraordinary evening bringing together visionaries from three of our most influential American theater institutions: Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Lincoln Center Theater and The Public Theater.

PERFORMING ARTS at Pace University presents“THE MASTERS SERIES”Conversations with Leaders in the American Theater

Visionaries from three of our most influential American theater institutions discuss Promotingand Creating New Work:

Anne Cattaneo, Dramaturg of Lincoln Center Theater (including the new Broadway plays of the current season); Creator and Head of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab.

Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM),responsible for institutional artistic direction.

Maria Goyanes, Associate Producer of The Public Theater (The Public LAB).

MODERATOR:Cosmin Chivu, Winner of the 2012 Drama League’s New Directors/New Works Project; Head of Directing at the Performing Arts at Pace University

ABOUT THE PERFORMING ARTS MASTERS SERIES: The Performing Arts at Pace University is dedicated to providing a new generation of students/artists with the opportunity of interacting with well-established, outstanding professionals that have developed new voices and ideas. The goal is to reinvigorate the theater’s ancient role as a public forum by focusing on the social and cultural context for the works of the American Theatre of today and tomorrow. The evening’s guests engage in discussions of their unique practices and bodies of work, followed by a Q&A session with Pace BFA and BA Performing Arts students.

COMPLETE BIOS:

ANNE CATTANEO is the dramaturg of Lincoln Center Theater and the creator and head of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab. A three term past president of Literary Mangers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, she is the recipient of LMDA’s first Lessing Award for lifetime achievement of dramaturgy. She has worked widely as a dramaturg on classical plays with directors such as Bartlett Sher, Robert Wilson, Adrian Hall, Jack O’Brien, Robert Falls, Mark Lamos and JoAnne Akalaitis. As the director of the Playworks Program at the Phoenix Theater during the late 1970’s, she commissioned and developed plays by Wendy Wasserstein (ISN’T IT ROMANTIC) Mustapha Matura (MEETINGS) and Christopher Durang (BEYOND THERAPY). For the Acting Company, she created two projects: ORCHARDS (published by Knopf and Broadway Play Publishing) which presented seven Chekhov stories adapted for the stage by Maria Irene Fornes, Spalding Gray, John Guare, David Mamet, Wendy Wasserstein, Michael Weller and Samm-Art Williams, and LOVE’S FIRE (published by William Morrow) responses to Shakespeare sonnets by Eric Bogosian, William Finn, John Guare, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Ntozake Shange and Wendy Wasserstein. Her own translations of 20th Century German playwrights include Brecht’s GALILEO (Goodman Theater 1986 starring Brian Dennehy) and Botho Strauss’ BIG AND LITTLE (Phoenix production starring Barbara Barrie, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) She is currently on the faculty at Juilliard. In July 2011, she was awarded the Margo Jones Medal given annually to a “citizen of the theater who has demonstrated a significant impact, understanding and affirmation of the craft of playwriting, with a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the living theatre everywhere.”

JOSEPH V. MELILLO, BAM executive producer since 1999, is responsible for the artistic direction of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In the years that he has held this role, BAM has enjoyed increases in both programming and audience attendance in its Harvey Lichtenstein Theater, Howard Gilman Opera House, Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé. Prior to his current position, Melillo served as BAM’s producing director, following a six-year tenure as founding director of the Next Wave Festival. Over the years, Melillo has fostered the work of emerging and established artists and forged dynamic artistic partnerships. One such partnership is The Bridge Project—a three-year series of international theater engagements featuring a trans-Atlantic company of actors directed by Sam Mendes and produced by BAM, The Old Vic (under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey), and Neal Street (headed by Mendes and partner Caro Newling). The Bridge Project has furthered the global reach of BAM’s mission, with engagements in the US, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, The Netherlands, Spain, France, and Germany. BAM will soon expand its campus with the addition of the Richard B. Fisher Building, featuring an intimate and flexible new performance space, and adding a third stage for BAM’s renowned Next Wave Festival. Joseph Melillo was named a Chevalier (1999) and an Officier (2004) de L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France. Also in 2004, he was awarded an honorary OBE for his outstanding commitment to British performing arts in America. In 2007, Melillo was appointed Knight of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, in recognition of his role in solidifying ties between the performing arts communities of Sweden and the United States. Melillo has served on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Graduate Program in Arts Management and on the boards of directors for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and En Garde Arts. He was a panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts Dance Program and the New York State Council on the Arts, and served as Multidisciplinary Panel Chair of the Pew Fellowships in the Arts’ 2003 and 2007 Awards. Melillo is a lecturer at colleges and universities nationally and internationally. He currently serves as a member of the International Arts Advisory Committee for the Wexner Prize (Wexner Center for the Arts). Melillo earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and theater at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut and a Masters of Fine Arts in speech and drama at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He is currently celebrating his 27th year at BAM.

MARIA GOYANES joined the staff of The Public Theater in August 2004 as an Artistic Associate, and was promoted to the Director of Special Projects before landing her current role Associate Producer. Previously as the Director of Special Projects she has worked on the development and cultivation of new plays and initiatives to support the work of a wide range of artists. She helped launch the Public LAB, a series that brings stripped down productions to audiences for only $10, working with Adrienne Kennedy, the Civilians, Naomi Wallace, Suzan- Lori Parks, Roger Guenveur Smith, and many others. Both The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman transferred to the Public’s mainstage subscription season after successful runs in Public Lab. She spearheaded the Suzan-Lori Parks’ yearlong 365 Days/365 Plays festival for NYC, working with 70 theater companies and over a thousand artists. When not at the Public, she is the Executive Producer of Obie- award winning 13P (13 Playwrights, Inc.), a 13 play project founded with a collective of writers that includes Sarah Ruhl, Young Jean Lee, Anne Washburn, Lucy Thurber, and Sheila Callaghan. She was the recipient of the Josephine Abady Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women. Previously, she was the Associate Producer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence RI. She is a first generation American (spanish and dominican – spininican) and hails from Jamaica, Queens.

COSMIN CHIVU (Moderator) has directed over fifty professional and university productions in America, Austria, England, Germany, Greece, and Romania. He is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, NYC, a fellow of the Jack O’Brien Lab at the Old Globe, and a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. He is the winner of the 2012 Drama League’s New Directors New Works Project. Chivu is currently running the Directing program and teaches theater courses in the Department of Performing Arts at Pace University’s New York City. In recent months he also taught Master Classes on Improvisation, Directing styles, and European Drama at the Tisch School at NYU, the University of Hawaii, and T.O.C. Athens, Greece. He is actively involved in developing courses in translating contemporary European plays for an American audience and has been developing new plays in the Actors Studio’s Playwriting Directing workshop. He holds a Masters in Theatre Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School, New School University, NYC and a BA in Acting from the G. Enescu Art Academy, Romania.